1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pharmaceutical composition for treating allergic disorders and method for making the same, and more particularly, to the herbal pharmaceutical composition for treating allergic asthma and a method for making the composition.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known that allergen-induced disorders, such as asthma, are still one of the serious health problems in the world. Recently, the onset of these allergic-related immunological disorders has shifted to the younger population. In other words, more children and adolescents have developed symptoms of allergen-induced immunological disorders. Many doctors and scientists believe that the early onset of allergen-related immunological disorders is accordingly linked to increasing environmental pollution.
While the percentage of the affected population and severity of the diseases are rising, the precise factors responsible for the increase of the population are not entirely clear. Therefore, our current methods for treating asthma still primarily depend on empirical and serendipitous findings rather than on a scientific fundamental approach. At present, anti-asthma medication has focused largely on either improving existing therapies (e.g. antileukotriene) or the prevention and reversal of inflammation (e.g. steroid inhalants) by inhibiting the inflammatory cytokines. However, it is found that those children having history of eczema and hay fever are also very vulnerable to asthma attack and this has raised the question “Should people with mild asthma whose symptoms occur more than occasionally take anti-asthma medications on a daily basis and last for years?” In response to such a question, it is worthy to test the effects of the traditional Chinese herbs, for which many documents indicate the benefits in reference to allergic diseases such as atopic dermatitis.
The traditional Chinese herbs have long been used for treating atopic dermatitis and asthma. It was revealed that the conditions of most patients could be improved in general by using traditional Chinese herbal medicines but the reason why patients cannot be totally and permanently cured is not clear. Some herbal medicines appear to be effective in the short term and with few occurrences of adverse effects, but the long-term effects for preventing disease progression are still waiting for more scientific studies. Therefore, further studies of traditional Chinese herbs should be carried out. The following references indicate the herbal medicines have functions of immunomodulation, but most of them obviously have unstable factors and should be intensively studied.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,503,542 disclosed a pharmaceutical composition, which comprises water extracts of Tuber Ophiopogon, Tuber Pinelliae, Radix Glycyrrhizae, and Radix Pancis Quinquefoli, and 50% alcohol extraction of Herba Tridacis procumbentis for Rhinitis. The recipe contained five herbs and retained a good effect of anti-inflammation. However, it is not easy to control the long-term therapeutic effect because this formulation has only a temporary symptom-releasing function.
WO 02/78723 A1 disclosed a pharmaceutical preparation of Chinese herbs which consists of kidney-fortifying and anti-asthma herbs, wherein said Chinese herbs comprise Ferilla Frutescens, Prunus Armeniaca, Glycyrrhiza Uralensis, Scutellaria Baicalensis, Coptis Chinesis, Tusilago Farfara, Stemona Sessilifolia, Fritllaria Cirrhosa, Pheretima Aspergillum, Psoralea Corylifolia, Codonopsis Pilosula, Hordeum Vulgara, Massa Fermentata Medicalis, Schisandra Chinensis, and Gypsum. The quality of this herbal extract is hard to be controlled because this recipe consists of fifteen kinds of herbs. A significant effect of drug-drug interaction is hard to be appreciated.
WO 02/32440 disclosed a Murraya koenigii extract for treating asthma. GB 2274059 disclosed a pharmaceutical composition comprising peony for asthma relief. Those disclosures use the extract of a single plant to treat or provide relief from acute asthma, but cannot maintain a long-term curative effect.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide a much simpler composition and manufacture methods, which prevent the active ingredients from changing before use in treating illness, improve the long-term therapeutic effects for treating immunological disorders, and/or obviate the aforementioned problems.
There are a few traditional Chinese herbs, which have a strong anti-inflammatory property and may be good for treating immunological disorders. For example, the effects of Scutellaria Baicalensis as an anti-inflammatory have been documented in ancient China since before 2nd-century AD and this herb is one of the main remedies for diseases occurring in “hot and damp” conditions, such as dysentery and diarrhea. However, there are no descriptions about how to manufacture the herb into homogenous powders for long-term storage and how to use it specifically for the treatment for allergic asthma. Therefore, this disclosure contains novel processes with minimum procedures to generate a therapeutic composition that combines Scutellaria Baicalensis with three other herbal extracts to reveal very good efficacy in vitro and in vivo studies. In other words, the combination of Scutellaria Baicalensis with three other herbal extracts does offer the benefits of extending the stability of several active components, exhibit efficacy on anti-allergic asthma, and decrease the toxicity of drugs in a human body.